She nodded, tensing, trying to hold her two numbers in her head while he counted. "One!" she cried, thrusting out her closed fist as he snapped out two fingers.

They both looked down.

"You forgot to call again!" she said.

"God's blood." He shook his head with a startled laugh. "You start the count. It seems that I cannot do both."

Elayne bounced on her toes as she counted. "One... two ... three- four! No, three! I meant three!" They were

holding out three fingers between them. She looked up. "I did! I swear it!"He put his hand under her chin. "You are a cheat, hellcat. A born cheat."Elayne took an excited breath as he leaned over and kissed her mouth. She sucked quickly at his lips and then broke away. "Ready? I'm ahead.""I will not allow you that last point.""I'm still ahead. What round is this?""Six. Because you cheated," he said."Ready?" She drew a deep breath, her body taut with anticipation, planning to call three and show two, trying to remember which was which. "One ... two ... three- five!" she yelled.He paused, holding out his two fingers near her two. "Five?" he inquired mildly.Elayne blushed. "You confused me!""How?" he demanded."By-standing there." She gave him a wounded look. "And kissing me.""Where shall I stand? Over the trapdoor?"She held up both palms, and then pressed them together. "Round six. One more time. We must compose our minds."They stood with their fists out, nearly touching. Elayne closed her eyes. For some reason the simple act ofchoosing two numbers and causing her mouth to produce one and her fingers to show another was quite strenuous, particularly when she seemed to want to laugh every time she met his eyes. She looked at him.He was watching her with a comical expression of inquiry."Are you sufficiently composed. Princess?"She made a face at him. "You are distracting me.""You are beautiful.""No, sir, you are beautiful, and know it far too well for any man's good. One ... two ... three- three!" she cried."One!" he shouted at the same time. She held out two fingers, he held out one."Ha!" Elayne jumped like a child. "Two points for me now. Seventh round.""Your hair is like silk." He reached out to touch it, but she caught his hand."Round seven," she said, holding his wrist steady before her, preventing him. "One ... two ... three ...""Four!" They both shouted at once. Two fingers showed on each hand."The Devil," he said. "I'm going down to a tie.""I'll win." She gave him a smirk.He caught her around the waist and pulled her against him, burying his face in her throat. Elayne gave a shriek and pushed him away, laughing. "Now who is cheating?"He stood straight. Elayne began to count. "Wait!" he said.She stopped.

"I must compose my mind," he said.

"One ... two ... you are a loathsome toad ... three... zero!" Their voices united as he yelled, "One!" When shelooked down, he held out one finger against her closed fist.She thrust out her lower lip. "A point for you.""You'll never win," he growled. "I won't abide it. Last round, hellcat."They leaned toward one another. Elayne counted. "One ... two ..." She held her free hand against his shoulder, holding him off as he pressed toward her. She could not look at him; she would have burst out inhilarity for the ferocious look on his face. "... three!" She flung out her hand. "Three! " she cried, while heshouted "Four! " at the same time, almost in her face.

They both looked down. He held two fingers extended. She had one.She shrieked again as he took her down against the bed, falling in a shower of hair and his body tumbling beside her. "I won!" she mumbled against his palm over her mouth. "Sound and fair!" She yelped as he rolledher over and muffled her head down in the pillows. "I won! I won! Ow!""Say my name," he ordered, holding her into the pillow by the nape of her neck. He was nearly on top of her, his weight pressed warmly against her hips and her back."No!" she cried, then gave a stifled scream and a buck as he put his arm about her. "You lost!""Aye," he said beside her ear, "but you think I'm beautiful.""A loathsome toad!" She giggled and gasped for air. "A great... toad!"She found herself turned over and pulled atop his chest as he lay back on the bed. He held her tight, their legs tangled amid the white robe and scarlet bedcover."Allegreto," she said, and he closed his eyes and leaned his head back and smiled.She had not known he could smile so. She had not imagined he could laugh. And he was beautiful-a far vision beyond beautiful-he was her pirate, her angel, his cheek and jaw and throat a perfect form, shadowedwith roughness, his lips parted. She could feel his breath rise and fall, the strength like a hunter's longbowdrawn taut, easily held, as his arm curled about her to pull her close.

"When I saw your eyes," he said, "I thought of that lake out there."

She ducked her face into his shoulder, taking a deep breath of his warm skin. "At home some said I had theEvil Eye when I looked on them.""Fools," he said. He twined his fingers in her hair. After a moment he tugged it and said, "This is your home."She did not answer. She had no answer. Monteverde still seemed unreal to her, a place of foreboding and violence. And yet this lake was Monteverde, the dark mountains, the water so dazzling under the sinking sunand radiance that it almost made her mind ache. And he was a manslayer, without any sense of right andwrong that she could fathom- and when he laughed with her... just once, laughed with an open delight in themoment-she felt as if some long-lost part of herself had been completed.

"You should not have to come home this way," he said. "Like a thief. I should have held it for you.""Not for me," she said, shaking her head."Look what is left of Navona." His mouth tightened, the smile gone. "I knew they had pulled the walls down-but I did not realize-until I saw it..." He let out a long breath. "I have not done well."She rested her hand on his chest. She had a strong desire to deny it, but there was not a single thing she knew of him that she could say with a whole heart was well or rightly done-except that he had saved her life.She traced the line of his collarbone with her forefinger. "You defeated me soundly at chess," she offered.He gave a short laugh. His mouth relaxed into an easier curve. "We have two days safe here.""Time enough to play morra again. I prefer it."He caught her hand in his fist, running his thumb up and down the inside of her palm. "I might have other amusements in my mind."She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. He raised his elegant eyebrows. Shesmoothed the tip of her finger along one of the scratches she had made on his skin. With no more than that, she felt his body grow taut. His lashes lowered. He ran his tongue over his lower lip.

"I won," she said in a low voice.

He turned over and lay atop her, spreading her hair on the pillows around her head. "Be cautious of me, hellcat," he said. "Be careful. There is a brink there-and I don't know where it is."

She felt herself as if she had long passed some precipice, and walked on thin air in this tower above the dark lake. "Do you fear it?" she whispered.

He ran his hands up behind her ears, his thumbs caressing her cheeks. "The galley drew anchor two days ago," he said. "You are certain."

"I am certain."

He closed his eyes briefly. "God help me, I cannot keep it in my head."

"In the small hours of the night, two nights past," she said.

He looked aside, frowning. She could feel his hands tighten in her hair. "I should know the names of Franco's men in d'Avina."

"You do not?"

He stared down at her, shaking his head slowly. "No." He lifted his head abruptly, as if he remembered something. "There should be a message tonight." With a quick move, he sat up on his elbow.

Elayne sat up also, watching him. The moment of play had vanished; he had nothing of pleasure or ease in his face now.

"I must go," he said. He started to rise, and paused. He leaned very close to her, just touching the corner of her lips. "Rest, beloved," he murmured. "Do not leave this chamber. I will return before morning."

He kissed her deeply, pressing her hard down into the pillows. As Elayne lifted her arms around his shoulders, he pulled back and turned away, his bare feet hitting the floor lightly as he left the bed.

There were no books in Gian Navona's chamber. If he had been a scholar and wizard like his bastard son, he left no sign of it in this tower haven. Elayne spent some of the long hours of the night in searching through his coffer and the cupboard, being careful to touch nothing that Allegreto had not examined and declared safe. She pulled the musty bedding from the mattress and replaced it with sheets from the cupboard. The scent of ancient herbs filled the room, their dry skeletons scattered across the carpet where they fell as she shook out the folded linen.

A wealth of fine tapestries lay rolled in the bottom of the cupboard-winter dress for the chamber, their rope cords coiled neatly by the hand of some long-vanished servant. Elayne looked up at a row of gilded wall hooks shaped like the heads of mastiffs, running the whole length and breadth of the chamber under a ceiling painted with silver stars. Gian Navona had not spared his comfort or expense here.

She made a pile of the old sheets. To occupy herself, she shook out Allegreto's indigo doublet and tried to brush the dried mud and sand from the collar. She had an idea of hanging it, to ease the wrinkles, and even managed to toss one of the tapestry cords over a hook before she looked again at the stains and deemed it a hopeless task. She laid the garment over his chair instead, feeling an unfamiliar moment of housewifely enjoyment as she arranged the cloth.

She punched and poked his felt hat into shape again, too, smiling a little as she hung it over the chair, thinking of his discolored eye and criminal look from under the pointed brim. She braided her hair when it was dry, standing well back from the sunburst mirror to see as she pinned it around her head.

Raymond had called her a remarkable woman. She looked at the shadowy face in the glass, only able to discern the line of her nose and cheek and the shape of her eyes in the weak lamplight.

Everyone said she resembled Lady Melanthe. But she did not see it. Perhaps their eyes were a similar color, and unusual, and that accounted for the likeness. Her godmother looked like a queen-Elayne did not think her own face and bearing even fitting for the princess that they said she was. There was a softness to her features, a wideness to her eyes, and an upward curve to her mouth that made her appear more like to a mischievous pup. She had hoped it would disappear as she grew older, but in the dark mirror she thought she looked no more regal than Nim.

She tried to make her face severe, and only succeeded in looking as if she were pouting. She tried to envision herself giving orders, dispensing justice. Even young Queen Anne looked more imperious.

It was no wonder Raymond had thought her a foolish girl. No wonder Il Corvo thought her naive.

A vision of him came to her, a clear image of his body, his back to her at the edge of the lake, that moment that he stood poised before her.

She imagined him on his knees.

She stared at herself. And even she could see that her face changed, that the pouting mischief transformed into something... different. It was the same face, and yet it was as if the shadows grew sharper and finer, more dangerous, and the lips no longer held a curve of mischief, but some secret unspoken knowledge.

She twisted her hands together and turned abruptly away. She did not recognize that face. It did not look like Lady Melanthe or Cara or anyone that she knew.

He warned her to be careful of him. Well she knew it. He was simply a killer, born and bred and trained to it, as an alaunt was made to take down its prey. A wolfhound might roll and sigh under an affectionate hand in the kennel, but an hour or a moment later, it would rise to hunt again.

She took up the tiny blossom from where she had laid it carefully by the comb as she braided her hair. It was but a fading thing now, a soft, broken star of petals. She closed her fingers on it and rolled it in her hand, crushing it until the heady scent rose up and filled her nose with sweetness.

In the dawn he stood by the open window embrasure, leaning his elbow on the stone wall. He looked out, his face and body lit with brightness from below, a half-silhouette in the dim room. He wore no shirt still, but black hose and boots of undressed kid softly wrinkled about his ankles and calves. The vambrace guards were strapped to his forearms. His daggers hung from the leather waist-belt, resting gently against his thighs.

"The message came?" Elayne asked, from within a nest of pillows and fragrant linen. She had put off the white robe when she went to sleep, and lay naked now within the sheets, a strange and delicate feeling. She had been in a bed unclothed only once before. In his bed. She could feel every place where the linen touched her.

He looked over his shoulder. "Not yet," he said. "But word came to Gerolamo to expect us to arrive here." He gave a soft derisive snort. "Morosini took his good time."

She hugged a pillow to her, watching him. She had not slept much, and when she had, she had dreamed of playing morra in a dark lake where the water would not let her move her fingers.

The leather buckled to his arms gave him the look of a fighter. He leaned at ease on the wall, his hand propped behind his head. Against the pale skin beneath his arm, against the smooth taut muscle, the sight of the dark gauntlet straps made heat rise in her throat.

He turned onto his shoulders and crossed his arms, resting his foot up against the wall. "So we will wait. Though I fear there is little to provide diversion here. I brought food and drink, if you want it."

She did not want food or drink. She wanted him.

"I thought of a game," she said, turning onto the pillow on her stomach, keeping the coverings up over her to her neck.

He lowered his chin, looking at her from across the chamber. "Another game?"

Elayne flipped a bit of sheet over her nose. "By chance it is more of a story than a game." She pulled the sheet down a little, just enough to clear her mouth. "It is like ... feigning the people in a tale."

"Is it?" he said.

"Yes." She lifted her head, resting on her elbows. "An amusement, to pass the time. You said you delight in games. This is a game of human character."

His mouth curved up a little. "You remember that."

She rolled over, examining one of her fingernails, the sheet draped over her arms and breasts. "My game ... it is something like a play. I have one part, and you have another."

"What parts are these?"

She gave him a sidelong look, holding the sheet up to her throat. "I thought in haps I would feign to be a great queen."

He smiled openly then, tilting his head aside. "Not a minor one?"

"A great queen." She flushed. She sat full up against the pillow. "Like to the Queen of Sheba. All-powerful,with many lands.""I see," he said dryly. "And no doubt Your Majesty requires a humble servant to serve you in this game.""Oh, no," she murmured. She slipped down a little in the bed. "I do not require a servant."His glance drifted downward, along her body beneath the bedcovers. "A Solomon, to share your throne?"She shook her head. "No," she said."A lover?" he asked.Elayne drew breath more quickly. "I am told you are a manslayer, not a gallant.""It is true, my lady." He bowed his head."Then haps you will play the part of a warrior." She looked up at him. "A prince."

"Will I?"She caught the covers in her hands and sat up fully, holding them to her breasts. "Aye. A warrior and aprince, I think. From a far land, that has been-" She hesitated, burying her hands into the bedsheet."Conquered."

A long silence followed her words. She did not look at him; she could not. She blinked rapidly, aware thatthere was an excited blur of moisture in her eyes, as if she had just heard some terrifying tale of goblins andhauntings. Her body seemed to grow warm all over, sensitive to every touch of the linen.

"Brought-" She cleared her throat. "Um-brought before me as a prisoner," she said in a failing voice, whenhe did not answer. She leaned over her knees, hiding her face.

"Do you think I would abase myself?" he asked.She looked up. He watched her from the dimness, obscured now against the growing light in the window. Shecould not see his expression clearly. Only his bare muscular arm crossed over the other, strapped in leather.

"I don't know," she said unsteadily. "It is play."

He made a soft laugh. "I fear you do no justice to the role of a great ruler-with that squeaking voice, andfortified among pillows. As your defeated enemy, I am not much impressed."She drew herself up. The disadvantage of her nakedness was palpable between them. The white robe lay across the foot of the bed.With a regal move, she threw aside the bedcoverings. She folded her knees in the most graceful and queenlymanner she could contrive and took up the robe as she rose. She imagined a host of handmaids and pulled it on with proud leisure, not deigning to close it from neck to toe, but only fastening one button across herbreasts. She looked up, but still she could not discern his face against the glare.She swept forward a few steps and sat down in the large chair, placing her hands on the arms. "Let me see you," she said. "Come into the light."

For a moment she did not think he would. Then he moved, one step that swung him away from the wall intothe growing sunlight, standing with his legs apart and his arms still crossed, a little curl of scorn on his lips.He made a very good likeness of an enemy prince. But he did not appear conquered, not at all, though his eye was blackened and his shoulders bore scratches and bruises like fading battle marks. With some effort,Elayne kept her face composed. She found it necessary to imagine guards-a number of them. She met hisfaint smile with a narrow look.

"You are insolent," she said. "Lower your hands."He looked down at her. His glance drifted in clear boldness to where the robe opened to reveal a curve of herbare thigh and knee. Elayne stared at him, unblinking. Guards, she reminded herself. If she were a queen,there would be guards enough to cause him to do what she pleased. She leaned back in her chair with a casual move, careless of the robe, not taking her eyes from his. No challenge, no contest; a simpleassumption that he must obey. It was a game, though it did not entirely seem so.He drew a slow breath. Then he gave a low toneless laugh and raised his look to the wall above her head, uncrossing his arms, his hands not quite at his side, but open, resting lightly on his thighs. It was the stanceof a man who might draw his weapons in an instant.

"Disarm," she said.

His faint smile of contempt vanished. He glanced at her. A long moment passed, with a new guardedness in his look. Elayne felt the tiny hairs on her neck and arms rise. He was truly splendid, standing half-naked like a royal savage, gazing at her now as if she were a stranger to him.

"Do you fear me so much that you must have your blades at ready?" she murmured.

He put his hand to the buckle of his waist-belt. Then he dropped it away and shook his head just slightly.

"Perchance you are afraid to play this game," she said.

He turned back his head and gave a raw laugh. "Aye. I am. Hellcat."

She stood, walking to him, and put her hand on his chest. She felt him draw a deep uneven breath. He closed his eyes, then opened them when she passed her fingers over his nipple.

"You are insolent again," she said. "Disarm."

He seemed taller than he ever had to her, standing so close-tall and barbaric and unpredictable. She gave his nipple a sharp flick.

He drew air between his teeth. He reached again for the buckle and pulled the leather loose, standing straight, staring over her head. As the belt came free, Elayne caught it in her hand. He resisted for an instant, and then let it go.

He stood looking beyond her, utterly still.

She let her gaze pass over him, from his waist to his hips and up again to his chest and shoulders and throat. She could see that beneath his breeches there was a thickening in his body, a growing readiness. Another prickling wave of sensation raised the secret tender places on her skin. It made her feel warm and damp beneath the robe. She paused, drinking in the sight of him. He was such a pleasure to look upon. And hers. Her captive, her prisoner-she lost herself in the fantasy of it, that he was under her command; entirely at her will.

She dropped the waist-belt on the table and touched him again, reaching up to his shoulder, running her palm down his arm. He turned his forearm up and moved his hand abruptly, as if to reach for the vambrace strap and release it.

"No," she said. She slipped her fingertip just under the leather, tracing the well-fitted edge. His skin was firm and silky at once, the blue veins showing on his inner wrist. She rested her fingers there, feeling his hard pulse. "No. Wear these. I like them."

She lifted his hand between hers. He submitted to it, his lashes lowered, making no resistance as she spread his fingers and explored the perfect masculine shape of his hand.

The metal bands on the arm guards gleamed dully. His third blade, bone-handled, lay in a tight leather sheath inside the length of his forearm. When she put her hand over the hilt, her fingers slipped easily into spaces molded for them.

He made a warning sound in his throat, not quite a word. Elayne closed her hand and drew the knife, looking up at him slantwise. "Is it poisoned?" she asked coolly.

He breathed deeply, his eyes on the blade. All distance was gone from his look. "No," he said.

She nodded down toward the others. "Only the left-hand dagger."

His left hand opened and closed, as if he could feel the hilt of it. He never took his eyes from the knife she held. "Aye."

"I remember," she said, taking a step back. "Do not move." She picked up the waist-belt and walked apart from him, taking his weapons away the whole width of the chamber. When she was on the far side of the bed, she turned and stopped, watching him.

He stood still, but he flexed his hands with a motion that showed all through his body, as if he pressed against a great weight. The muscles in his shoulders and neck grew taut. He swallowed, staring at the empty space before him. "Elena," he said hoarsely. "Take care."

She ran the tip of her tongue over her teeth. Take care with the blades, perchance he meant, but a fine sweat had broken out over his skin. She could see it in the morning light streaming now from the window. It was as if she held his very life and heart in her hands, in these glimmering shafts of steel.

She was well-cautious with the daggers, placing the bone-handled knife gently on his father's coffer and leaving the others sheathed as she slid them free from the belt. His girdle was plain, made of fine strong hide, dark and well-worn, the inside lined with kidskin as soft as a lady's glove and stitched in small even seams. The leather was still pliable with the heat of his body. She curved it around her fist, pleased by the feel of it next to her skin.

She walked slowly back to him.

He turned his head. "What have you done with them?" he asked sharply.

"Whatever I like," she said, holding her hands behind her.

"Hellcat." His voice held a fierce warning, though he stood rooted in the place she had left him.

She looked aside at him speculatively. "I am your queen now, warrior," she said softly. She clasped her hands modestly in front of her, the belt entwined and dangling from her fingers.

He glanced down at her hands. For an instant there was something like relief in his face, and then the curl of derision came again to his mouth. But she could see the pulse beating hard in his throat.